The Zen of Mies

Finch's Fifteen stones (Ryoan-ji) follows interventions by, among others: Anna and Eugeni Bach, who covered the pavilion's floors and walls in white vinyl; Jordi Bernadó, who took the glass doors off the pavilion so it was aligned with Mies's original intentions; and Andrés Jaque, who brought all the utilitarian stuff from the basement and scattered it about the usually empty pavilion.

Common among these interventions is a strong reaction to Mies's Barcelona Pavilion and a dramatic reshaping of how the modern masterpiece is seen. Finch looked at one element of Mies's design — the shallow pool — and, realizing it was almost the same dimension as the famous gravel surface of the Ryoan-ji rock garden (10x25m), turned it into a metaphorical landscape of fifteen stones.

Famously, there is no vantage point from which all fifteen of the stones at Ryoan-ji can be glimpsed at once. Grouped into five clusters of two, three, and five, the stones defy simple explanation or symbolism. Rather, they provoke meditation upon their meaning, something Finch aims for with Fifteen stones (Ryoan-ji). At the same time, Finch has picked up on the synergies between the minimal Modernism of Mies van der Rohe and the architecture of Zen Buddhist buildings and gardens. Aesthetically divergent, these two poles find common ground in a certain "quiet," a simplicity of materials, and shared geometric proportions.

In the artist's words:

The Ryoan-ji Garden in Kyoto and the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona are two of my favorite places in the world. ... I find that when I am in either of these places my brain works in overdrive, trying to comprehend the space; at the Pavilion, the relationship between indoors and outdoors and the structure within the site and in Ryōan-ji with the stones in relationship with one another and with a larger metaphorical landscape. Both of these places are deeply human, they are about feeling oneself as a physical, living being in relationship to the world and also about a gargantuan achievement of profound abstract thought, almost like discovering a complex mathematical theorem. By dropping a version of Ryōan-ji into the reflecting pool of the Pavilion, by being able to see these two miracles of humanity next to each other, I am hoping that my brain will explode.